Culture and SLA - Week 6 - Culture Learning Outcomes
Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 6 of the course Culture and Second Language Acquisition for the master's in English teaching at ULACIT term IIIC0 2022. This week we will consider how schools help inculcate cultural values, look at another model for comparing cultural values across countries; and identify culture learning outcomes, how they are achieved, and contexts in which they are appropriate.
Today's Goals:
- Describe value orientations in Costa Rican culture and identify contrasting values.
- Discuss the role of schools as acculturation institutions for transmitting dominant cultural values.
- Discuss appropriate culture learning goals for different contexts.
- Articulate several core beliefs about how you see yourself as a cultural educator.
Guiding Questions:
- What does my culture value and how do these values contrast with different cultures?
- What role do institutions play in transmitting cultural values?
- How can I articulate and classify the aims of culture learning?
- How do I view myself as a cultural educator?
Task 1: Contrasting Values
Last week we studied Hofstede's 6 Dimensions of Culture that allow us to explore contrasting value orientations at a national level. Click your group link below and classify the values of Costa Rica in general and match them with their contrasting value pairs. When you finish, go on to pages two and three and discuss the prompts.
- Group 1: CLICK HERE
- Group 2: CLICK HERE
- Group 3: CLICK HERE
Theory Break: Cultural Values
Moran identifies four categories of cultural perspectives (perceptions, beliefs, values, and attitudes) which he organizes in a continuum from tacit to explict. The most explicit category of perspectives are attitudes which are "visibly manifested in practices (p. 77)." On the far end of the spectrum are perceptions, the least visible category of perspectives.
Perceptions: What we perceive, what we ignore; what we notice or disregard
Beliefs: What we hold to be true or untrue
Values: What we hold to be right/wrong, good/evil, desirable/undesirable, proper/improper, normal/abnormal, appropriate
Attitudes: Our mental and affective dispositions - our frame of mind, our outlook - charged with feeling or emotion
Country Comparison Studies: World Values Survey
The World Values Survey is a massive international research project that began in 1981. It consists of an extensive survey of the value orientations of individuals around the world in order to produce country level results. The survey seeks to contrast countries on two separate value dimensions or scales.
- Traditional Values vs Rational-Secular Values (y axis)
- Survival Values vs Self-Expression Values (x axis)
This allows the researchers to place countries in a coordinate system which creates a visual way to easily compare, contrast, and group different countries. Also, by comparing survey results of different years, researchers can chart how the values of a specific country change over time.
Click your assigned link below. Read the information with your partners and discussion the questions at the end. Be prepared to share your ideas when you return to the main room.
- Exploring Traditional vs Rational Values Axis
- Exploring Survival vs Self-Expression Values
Inglehart-Welzel World Culture Map
Instructions: Click the picture to view the full resolution image and discuss the questions below.
- Explore the map, which countries can you find at the extremes of each value dimension (axis)?
- What catches your attention about the way the countries cluster by geographic and socio-historical cultural regions?
- Where do you think Costa Rica would fall on this map? (WVS plans to include CR in the next value survey.)
Now watch the video that shows how these cultural areas have shifted over the last 40 years through different maps that have been created based on the survey results since it began in 1981. Discuss the questions below the video.
- Do you notice any general trends among the countries in the Latin American region?
- Watch the video again. This time focus your attention on France. How does this country's values orientation shift through the decades?
- Watch the video again. This time focus your attention on Mexico. How does this country's values orientation shift through the decades? What might explain this variation?
Task 2: Etic Perspectives on Costa Rica Culture
A few weeks ago you read and reacted to a short chapter from book The Green Season called "The Autobus Diaries". Let's take a moment to explore this text and identify dimensions of culture that we found there.
- Group Link: CLICK HERE
Task 3: Schools as Acculturation Institutions
Institutions like school are cultural products. However, they are very special products because they serve the purpose of promoting cultural practices and perspectives and they help to create a shared sense of national cultural identity. Watch this video clip documenting some of the daily routines in a typical elementary school in Japan and answer the questions below.
- What were some of the routines?
- What was similar and different to your own elementary school experience?
- How do these practices give you insight into Japanese cultural perspecitves (perceptions, beliefs, values, attitudes)?
- How do practices in Costa Rican elementary schools promote cultural perspectives and contribute to a shared sense of national identity?
Morning Routine in the US
Variations by School and Region
Task 4: Culture Learning Outcomes
Your reading this week focuses on the topic of culture learning outcomes; the different possible results of the culture learning process. Moran provides us with a useful way of classifying these outcomes which can help us choose a particular way of focusing our teaching efforts depending on our context. Click the group link below to explore the what, how, and why of the six culture learning outcomes.
- Group Link: CLICK HERE
- Answer Key: CLICK HERE
Theory Break: Culture Learning Outcomes
- “To generalize … across all these culture learning outcomes, I would say that all intend that learners confront, comprehend, accept, and overcome cultural differences. This process involves an interplay of mind, body, heart, and self - or, in technical terms, cognition, behavior, affect, and identity. As part of mastering the language, learners need to change the way they think, act, feel, and perceive themselves and their roles if they are to function effectively and appropriately in the other culture (p. 119).”
- The particular culture learning outcomes you seek for your students will inform the focus you give your lessons and the model of culture teaching you develop. Moran says, “the key distinction among [culture teaching]... models lies with differing notions of ‘overcoming’ cultural differences. These range from simply changing one’s mind or feelings about a given culture (culture-specific understanding) through recognizing how one’s own culture affects acceptance of other cultures (culture-general understanding), learning to communicate appropriately in a second language/culture (competence), integrating oneself into another language and culture (adaptation), developing a distinct sense of self (identity), to taking action to transform a culture based on one’s own beliefs (social change). Ultimately, the individual learner decides how to respond and develops skills as a culture learner (personal competence) (p. 119)."
- Which of these outcomes resonate with you and the way you view yourself as a cultural educator?
- What beliefs about culture form part of your learning philosophy that guides your approach to teaching? CLICK HERE to add to the culture teaching manifesto!
References:
Isenberg, R. (2015). The Green Season. The Tico Times Publication Group.
Moran, P. (2001). Teaching Culture: Perspectices in Practice. Heinle, Cengage Learning.
World Values Survey Association. (2020). Findings and Insights. World Values Survey.
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